SRINAGAR: Members of Jammu and Kashmir unit of Shiv Sena were arrested on Wednesday while they were on their way to hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk here.

The Sena had announced the decision to hoist the tricolour after National Conference president Farooq Abdullah had dared the Centre to hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk before talking about unfurling it in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

“They (Centre and BJP) are talking about raising flag in PoK. I ask them first you go and raise the tricolour at Lal Chowk in Srinagar. They can’t even do that here and they are talking about PoK," he said.

Defending his assertion for internal autonomy to both parts of divided Kashmir without obliterating the Line of Control (LoC), Farooq Abdullah had said if India wants to get PoK, let it move towards the LoC with guns.

Asked whether he was not hurting the Indian sentiment by making such comments, he retorted, asking "What is Indian sentiment? You think I am not an Indian?"

"Whose sentiments are you talking about? Those crooks who don’t see our miseries. Who don’t see the miseries of our border people? How they suffer when shelling starts?" he added.

Abdullah had invoked then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee saying that the sanctity of LoC could not be trampled by crossing over during Kargil incursion.

He also referred to the return of the strategically crucial Haji Peer picket in north Kashmir to Pakistan after India conquered it in 1965.

"NC had not advocated this, but the Indian nation as such took this decision," he said.